Free Custom «Civilian Oversight Committees » Essay Paper

Just as it can be recognized that there are some criminal justice personnel who should be appreciated for giving there best shots in serving the community when it comes to judicial justice, it cant be denied the fact that there are those who misuse the judicial discretion powers bestowed upon them to wrongly deliver their duties. The judicial system has been noted to impact so much on the racial and ethnic minorities and this has led to the public questioning of the integrity of such systems personnel’s. This is evident by the increasing cases of false arrest, police brutality, wrongful convictions, tampering of evidences and even the fact that some people have been declared innocent after been placed on death row.

There have been questions on the way the law enforcement officials, juries, prosecutors and the entire court system deliver their duties. For example in united states, if you are white or for that matter Caucasian and own well wealth chances that you will end up in jail are so slim and this has led to the need for civilian oversight committees that is to ensure that such judicial discrimination against criminals from the minority communities are eliminated. This has therefore called for formation of civilian oversight committees that are intended to over se that judicial systems serve every citizen justly and fairly without any discrimination prejudices (Schmalleger, 2006).

A civilian oversight committee is held responsible in some roles that contribute to ensure that authoritative decretory powers bestowed upon those responsible for delivering judicial services are not abused when carrying out their judicial duties. Some of the roles that such oversight committees are stated as follows:

A civilian oversight committee is primarily responsible in verifying whether the judicial systems deliver their judgments against the alleged wrong doing in an appropriate a manner without misuse of their discretional powers. To ensure this the oversight committee should remain impartial and independent while playing its roles. These oversight bodies are established to ensure that investigations are carried out in a proper way and they don’t have to be ones carrying out such investigations. Sometimes such oversight committee investigates cases that are reported to them and they usually focus on monitoring in turn police investigations as well as review findings obtained from such investigations after which the body can make its recommendations to the system to necessitate taking of corrective measures to counter the vice in the judicial system.

The designated civilian judicial oversight committee is also held responsible in ensuring that individual cases of alleged or possible prosecutor’s misconduct are properly investigated and appropriate disciplinary or criminal charges are implemented. This they can do by regular participation in forums that involve the participation of the public and other institutions that support their cause hence can track comments and complaints that are relevant to there duties and even involve the use of services of the mass media.

Judicial civilian committees also ensure that the judicial system are taking the appropriate steps to prevent wrong doing like wrongful judgments ,influence of corruption and even misuse of the courts discretional powers. Oversight committees are also responsible for acting in part or whole on behalf of the civilians in tracking and logging complaints that are intended to prevent corruption and misdeeds that are carried out by the judicial personnel. Also its’ supposed to establish a rating system to identify the attorneys, prosecution and judicial misconduct.

A civilian judicial oversight committee is voluntary and often has no force of regulation but rather a power to persuade. Though others can be tie to mandatory bar associations or even state supreme courts. Such oversight committees have a carefully balanced between those with political affiliations and those with political experience and they all adopt a relevant role, and operational mode and roles (Miller, 2002).

Oversight committee should be able to concur and respond well to the spirit of the opinions of the citizens especially when the statements are inconsistent with the standard and neutrality of the judicial excellence. In addition, civilian judicial oversight committees should have the consensus on what is described and legally accepted as fair from the unfair. Such committees should be able to authorize persons to dismiss non-meritorious judicial complaints and should have in place appropriate procedures that can be used to handle eleventh hour cases and complaints. Ina addition they should have enough resources and capabilities to enable them process judicial complaints as prompt as possible and they should have operational jurisdictions in their duties.

There are various attitudes that affects the way the criminal justice personnel when using his discretional powers towards the public. Some criminal justice personnel are influenced by the criminal’s racial disparities into making unfair judgments against. The judicial system has been noted to impact so much on the racial and ethnic minorities and this has led to the public questioning of the integrity of such systems personnel’s (Swanson, 2007).This is evident by the increasing cases of false arrest, police brutality, wrongful convictions, tampering of evidences and even the fact that some people have been declared innocent after been placed on death row.